


Close Encounters Part Two

by JaneDavitt



Series: Close Encounters [2]
Category: Psych
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-21
Updated: 2010-08-21
Packaged: 2017-10-11 04:42:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/108523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneDavitt/pseuds/JaneDavitt





	Close Encounters Part Two

Carlton had been sitting on the bench outside the Psych office, looking out at the ocean, for twenty minutes before Spencer flopped down beside him, all loose-limbed and casual. It didn't take a detective to figure out that the casual act was just that. One swift, sideways glance showed him that Spencer's fingers were flexing, tapping, never still, and a place on his lower lip had been chewed raw since Carlton had kissed it that morning.

Unless...No, he would've remembered biting into that lip.

"Took you long enough to pick up the psychic vibration that I was out here," he said without turning his head again. "Ever consider looking out of the window from time to time?"

"The spirits are angry with me," Spencer said, his voice lacking the sparkle Carlton was used to hearing. "They blocked your presence for hmm, I'm sensing...nineteen minutes? No, twenty."

"Now how could anyone possibly be angry with you?" Carlton asked, his voice so heavy with sarcasm that he could almost see his words plummeting to the ground, one by one.

"I got out of bed on the wrong side this morning," Spencer said promptly. "They take that very seriously. Or do I mean I got out of the wrong bed on the right side?"

"If you're sleeping with someone else --" Carlton began, not at all surprised that the thought of it bothered him, but troubled by how much he wanted it not to be the case.

"The love of a man for his binkie is a sacred thing, Lassie-the-Pooh -- no, you're more of an Eeyore type. Don't worry. I'm pure as the driven snow, unless the driving was done by a snowmobile. I've heard they're a threat to the woodland creatures and make Piglet hide under the covers."

Carlton ignored ninety percent of what Spencer was saying eighty percent of the time -- it was that or commit acts of wanton violence on a civilian -- but he'd heard enough to realize that Spencer was being reassuring in his own way. No rival for Spencer's affections, then.

Until the next pretty woman walked by.

The problem Carlton had in dealing with Spencer as a potential...something, was that his utter confidence in his abilities to be a good detective was in inverse proportion to his belief in his own powers to attract. Because he didn't. If he was a fridge, magnets would slide off him. Nobody wanted his enthusiasms, his passion, his quirks. No one wanted him enough to overlook them, either.

He was pinning his hopes on the fact that Spencer was different than everyone he knew, so maybe, just maybe, Spencer would be different when it came to wanting him, too.

Long shot. Very. There was also Spencer's attention span deficit to consider. Carlton was well aware of the risks he was taking getting involved with Spencer -- today had made sure of that, presenting them in 3-D and Technicolor. He was just at the point where the warning voices in his ear were still shrieking, but they were being drowned out by Spencer's voice. Even when he wasn't there.

It'd be a hell of a thing if he gave in, turning his back on all that was right and proper in the world -- because detectives didn't screw around in public restrooms, they just didn't -- and then discovered that Spencer had wanted a one-night stand and some juicy blackmail material.

Not that he'd call it that, of course. No, he'd just get his own way, from here to Carlton's retirement, by dropping little hints and innuendos whenever Carlton said 'No way, Spencer'.

The idea of being used, dumped, and then manipulated made Carlton itch as if he were wearing one of the woolly sweaters his aunt used to knit for him and his mother made him wear.

"I bet your feet are as chilly as a grape Popiscle right now," Spencer said with a flat certainty. "I knew I shouldn't have given you time to think. Or jerk off."

"What? How did you -- I didn't." He was blushing furiously now. He had. Coming hard into a wad of thin toilet paper, his eyes closed, no hand free to gag himself with, so he'd gritted his teeth and then, inspired, flushed the toilet with a flailing foot to help cover the single moan that he'd known he couldn't hold back. It'd been the quickest, most comprehensive climax of his life and he'd staggered out of the stall when the coast was clear and washed his hands until they were red from the gallons of scalding water that'd coursed over them.

"You're scared I'll mess up your nice, tidy life," Shawn continued, still with that total lack of fizz to him. "Oh, Lassie. You coulda been a contender."

"I -- what?" Carlton shook his head. "No. I'm not going to let you sidetrack me." He'd turned without being aware that he'd moved, turned to face Spencer like a flower seeking the sun. Moths and flames were also on his mind.

Spencer raised his eyebrows. "We're on a track now? A fast track to nowhere? A highway to hell?"

"You irritate me," Carlton told him. "Most of the time, in fact."

Spencer held up a finger. "To be fair to me, most of the time I'm doing it on purpose. You're unbelievably cute with your ears wiggling and steam whooshing out of those perfectly sculpted nostrils."

"Is that so." Carlton reached out impulsively, daring himself to do it, and stroked his finger across Spencer's lip, feeling the roughness of the skin and following its changing curve when Spencer smiled. He wouldn't have done that yesterday, but things had changed.

He'd kissed Shawn Spencer. God, he'd actually _kissed_ him. The magnitude of that hadn't sunk in fully, but it'd descended enough for him to feel that he had a right to touch that mouth with any part of him he wanted. Okay, maybe not any part…but he flashed on an image of Spencer lying curled up on the floor beside Carlton's couch, a naked, collared, obedient, faithful man's best friend. He could just reach out with his bare foot and push gently at him, move him with a nudge here and there, then place his foot oh so very carefully across Spencer's mouth and feel that hot, clever tongue lick and lap…

"Lassie, are you thinking naughty thoughts? Because you're staring at me without blinking and I need a towel to mop up the drool."

Carlton jerked out of his fantasy just as it changed to him straddling Spencer's chest and rubbing the head of his cock over a mouth he'd licked wet a moment earlier. It took him a second or two to switch gears and when he stared into Spencer's quizzical eyes he felt so guilty for what he'd been thinking that he apologized. He'd sometimes wanted to do that before -- not often but sometimes -- but it'd felt like capitulation, craven and complete.

"God, I am so sorry, Spencer. Really."

"What for?"

Carlton rubbed his hand over his mouth. He didn't lie often and Spencer was being surprisingly honest today so it didn't seem like a good time to change his habits. Well, not that one. "Because I _was_ thinking about you like that," he admitted.

Spencer whistled and pumped his fist in the air, some of his ebullience returning. That made Carlton feel better about what was becoming a terminal case of the blushes. "Knew it. I nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-knew it. Lassie, you bad, bad boy. Tell Uncle Shawn all about those wicked thoughts and we can schedule a spanking. My ass or yours?"

"Keep your voice down!" Carlton cast a hunted glance around. People walking dogs, jogging, eating ice cream…the place was awash with potential lip-readers or people who knew him. Before he could realize how stupid it sounded, he added, "And I'm not even sure they were my fantasies."

"Maybe they're mine if they're _that_ steamy," Spencer said brightly. "Thought transference. Way cool." He put his fingers to his temple in a move Carlton had watched him perfect over the months. "What number -- no, what color am I thinking about?"

"Red," said Carlton without hesitation. With him doing tomato impressions, what else could it be?

"Ooh," Spencer said. "Now I'm really sure we're on the same wavelength. Are you a paddle or a hand man?"

"I don't know what you mean and I don't want to," Carlton said with as much decision as he was capable of, deciding that lying was the lesser of many evils. He was _not_ getting into kinky games in bed or out of it, no matter how tempting they suddenly were. He'd never once suggested anything along those lines to Victoria, never even thought about it. That proved...okay, that just proved what he already knew, namely that he was different around Spencer.

It was a measure of how bored he was with his life and himself that different didn't necessarily get a 'do not want' label slapped on it these days. Was this what a mid-life crisis felt like? Didn't you have to be old to have one of those?

He strove for composure. "I just want to know what's happening here between us. Straight answers to some simple questions; is that too much to ask?"

Spencer stared out at the water where a setting sun was making gray waves flush scarlet, his momentary liveliness fading. "Ask away."

"Are you serious about this or is it some kind of joke with me as the punch line?" Carlton demanded.

"Define 'this'," Spencer said.

"You know what I'm talking about!" Carlton said. "The flirting. The kissing. The clear implication that you want -- God knows why -- to have sex with me."

Saying it aloud was a mistake. It sounded _really_ unlikely. Inconceivable, even.

"Oh, that," Spencer said with a shrug. "Sure. Totally, one hundred and ten percent serious, Lassie. By which I mean I'm not joking about having sex with you, but I reserve the right to giggle before, during, and after."

"After? You'd laugh about me in bed in front of other people?" Carlton said hoarsely. Not even Victoria had done that.

Carlton had seen Spencer disconcerted before, but so rarely that it ranked with solar eclipses. He saw it then, and he swallowed back a second apology.

"Dude, I wouldn't do that to you. To anyone. True, I once told a girlfriend that she barked like a seal at the crucial moment and should I bring her tuna not chocolates, but that was totally between us."

Carlton stared at him, his mouth ajar at the very idea that Spencer could have been that cruel, that crude, until Spencer waved his hand. "Okay, I didn't actually say it _aloud_, but I thought it. And I broke up with her five minutes later because I hated myself for thinking it, which sucked, because I really liked her."

"I'm not sure you're helping me make up my mind about asking you to come back to my place or walking away while I still have some self-respect."

"You could do that?" Spencer asked, his eyes wide. "Walk away from me after kissing me once? Not reach out for another handful of salty goodness? Wow. So that's what an iron will looks like. I had a whole different picture in my head."

There was a pause that Carlton measured in breaths, three of his, five of Spencer's, then he shook his head. "No, I can't walk away. I'm here, aren't I? I just -- I know how fickle you are and I don't want to be another notch on your belt."

"'Fickle'? Me?" Shawn pursed his lips. "Not when it counts."

"Yes, you are," Carlton argued. "You flirt with every woman who crosses your path, you don't stop even when you're already walking away --"

"Gus," Shawn said with the air of a man providing the clinching argument.

Carlton gaped at him. "You and _Guster_ have sex?"

If Spencer said 'yes' and even looked like he was about to go into detail, Carlton planned to run. Fast. With his hands over his ears.

Spencer choked. "What? No! Good gravy, no. Gus is...he's Gus. I just mean that we've been friends for ever. No fickleness in sight. We'll probably die on the same day and fight over who gets to walk through the Pearly Gates first."

"I'll give you Guster," Carlton said, "while not admitting that he's relevant to our situation or that you'd make it into heaven."

"Too much talking," Spencer said decisively. "Unless you want to share those fantasies -- no? -- I'm going to table a motion to find a table and put it in motion. Unless we find a really sturdy one that can handle two grown men using it for a bed."

"Or we could find a bed?" Carlton suggested with a daring that left him breathless. He was doing this. Flying blind, without a single assurance from Spencer, other than the one about not mocking Carlton in public on this one subject, at least, he was really doing this. God.

Shawn sucked in a disapproving breath. "Do you see a bed nearby, Lassie? And, no, the sea bed doesn't count. Whereas my office is just here and it's got lots of tables."

"It's not that far to my place," Carlton began, secretly appalled at the idea of doing anything in a place that open, that public, with doors that far too many people had keys for.

Spencer stared at him incredulously. "Lassie, it's way too far. Have mercy, dude. I've been hard since you appeared and sat down here looking all stern and determined with just a hint of vulnerability. I think that's your shoulders. They do this drooping thing when you're worried. Didn't you notice I'm wearing one of my dad's shirts because it gives me a crucial three inches more coverage?"

"No," Carlton said. "I wasn't looking at what you were wearing."

Spencer's hand flashed out and Carlton found himself deprived of sight. "Not true, Head Detective Lassiter. What am I wearing? Guess it right and I'll let you take it off me."

Carlton could feel the press of every finger and the humid heat of Spencer's palm. He opened his eyes and closed them again when Spencer said, "That's cheating and it tickles. Your eyelashes are like a foot long."

"They are not!"

"They flutter like my heart when you slam me against a wall," Spencer said in a languishing voice. "Now tell me what I'm wearing."

Carlton sighed and gave in. "Jeans, blue, ripped at the knee, a triangular tear, shirt's a white background with a pattern of --"

"I won't make you describe the pattern," Spencer said. "The shirt, you can rip off me. In fact, please do, and if you can manage to somehow set fire to it as well, I'll refrain from sitting on your desk and disturbing the alignment of your spare pencil sharpener for the next week."

"Red parrots, pineapples, and -- I'm truly puzzled here -- kittens wearing sombreros?" Carlton said, refusing to cheat.

"That'll do, Lassie-pig, that'll do." Spencer took his hand away, leaving Carlton blinking, then glanced at his office and back before raising his eyebrows.

Carlton was willing to concede the choice of venue for whatever came next, even willing to push aside his misgivings about the duration of this insanity (he should want to be sane but he didn't, oh God, he didn't) but he wasn't going to let Spencer dictate every single term of his surrender.

Without a single glance around at who might be watching, he tapped his lips and waited.

Spencer's kiss was hard, fast, and hungry, the kiss of a desperate man who was holding it together but barely.

Carlton staggered to his feet a moment later with only one thought in his head: the bench had been put in entirely the wrong place.

It took him ten endless seconds to cover the distance between it and the office door.


End file.
